The horse through all its trials has preserved the sweetness of paradise in its blood. ~ Johannes Jensen

in which I use the phrase “fell in love” repeatedly but not in any way related to men (or women, for that matter)

The Boys: Arturo, my mom’s OTTB (off-the-track thoroughbred), on the left and my handsome Mr. Mojo (aka the Big Red Caboose), the world’s most perfect quarter-horse, on the right, a few days after we brought Art home. Since then we have moved them out to pasture, where they have both grown and put on weight – they are big boys!

First, my apologies to Jane Smiley for my shameless appropriation of the title of one of her best novels as my new category… hey, when you’re going to steal, make sure it’s from someone good enough to win a Pulitzer Prize, right?

Sometime back in March I realized that while I liked my boss and liked my job, I didn’t want to spend every nice day inside looking at a computer, huddled under the air-conditioning. One night my mom and I spent on the front porch drinking wine and talking about what we really wanted to do led us to thinking about working with animals, and specifically horses. Neither of us had been involved with horses since we were girls but we both felt a sense of longing to have that amazing connection back in our lives again, or at least explore it and see if the fascination we remembered still existed. So with a little research and a little more wine, by May we were off to Round Hill, Virginia, to go to Equissage, the nation’s oldest school of Equine Sports Massage Therapy, with a plan in mind: to work on the backstretch of the Cal Expo Racetrack, working with the harness-racing horses that we had fallen in love with week after week at the races.

As so often happens to good plans put out there for the Universe to consider, it all began to snowball: First we fell in love with horses again like a crazed pre-adolescent girl who can’t talk or think about anything else; then, during a really difficult period in June, I found and fell in love with my charismatic, charming, and very well-bred quarter-horse and, never one to shy away from a big leap of faith, decided we were meant to be together; soon thereafter the same thing happened to my mom with her beautiful, long-legged thoroughbred that had raced at Belmont and Santa Anita under a very famous trainer and was now, like so many racehorses after their career is over, slotted to be sold at a not-too-pretty, where-do-all-the-horses-go? kind of auction but instead came home with us. We began to meet all kinds of people at the racetrack and, er, soon found ourselves owning half of a gorgeous bay standardbred pacer with the (really appropriate to our state of mind) name Kokomania. Next we end up at a new owner’s seminar, where we meet more people who introduce us to more people and so on and so forth, until we actually have both our owner’s and vendor’s licenses to work on the backstretch and…. we do.

Essentially, we lost our minds and found our hearts, and since then, you can find me in one of three places: the stables, the racetrack, or the backstretch. The whole horse world, and more specifically, the horse racing world, is incredibly time-consuming and all-encompassing, and you’d be hard-pressed to find me at home for more than a few hours, which is why this blog and all of my personal correspondence has more-or-less been abandoned as of late. Still, I’m not ready to give up on writing, especially not with all the new experiences I’ve had and everything I’ve learned over the last few months, so I’m ready to breathe some new life into this blog, which I realized the other night I really missed. Writing about what’s going on gives me some much-needed perspective on things, and reminds me that I have a life outside of what has become a very narrow focus. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if you see this category more than any other.

Next up: Stories from the Backstretch

sunset on horseback

I’m not sure what I could possibly say about my absolute fascination with horses that wouldn’t come across as unbearably cliched. It’s a lot like a love affair – it’s hard to say something new, but easy to keep talking.

Tonight I went on a ride along the American River Parkway. Some of you may recall that I used to walk my dogs along the path all the time – but I moved, and now never get the motivation to get in the car to go there. A few nights ago I was working on a horse in a stall on the backstretch in the evening, and as the sun was going down I saw a number of riders come in off the trail (the backstretch is adjacent to the parkway.) I was totally envious – the parkway is beautiful and as we don’t have a trailer and my horse resides in West Sacramento, I felt like, hmm.. always the bridesmaid, never the bride. (Which is really a silly turn-of-phrase for me in particular, as I’ve been married three times.)

Later in the week I saw a friend of mine at the races and mentioned to him that I had seen him out riding and how I wished I could bring my horse to the parkway, and he invited me to come out and ride one of his horses, Stewart, a lovely and affectionate paint horse I have adored for ages. Of course I said YES, GREAT, I WOULD LOVE TO, and we set a date, but then, as the day approached, I began to feel incredibly self-conscious and a wee bit nervous. I am a novice rider and I thought – Uh, what if I make an ass of myself, what if I look like a jerk, what if the horse doesn’t listen to me at all, what if what if? and I almost called him up and said, Er, I’ll take a rain-check. But, the truth is, my last few weeks have not been all that fabulous and the idea of having a relaxing evening out by the river on the back of a fabulous horse was stronger than my pride, so I showed up. And the first thing my friend said was, “By the way, Stewart can be kind of a dick. I took him out a while back and let a lady friend ride him and I thought he would be great, but he was so all over the place that I ended up having to ride him.” Um, okay. Right. Okay. I can do this.

And you know what? I could, and I did, and it was the nicest thing I’ve done in weeks. Yes, Stewart had his moments – not many, but a few, and I handled them, even when he went cantering through the trees (and I didn’t even lose my sunglasses, thank god) and when he half-reared, half-jumped over a little concrete barrier on the side of the trail – I just did what my body said to do, no thinking involved (they tell you in academy that you always revert back to your training, so maybe my body remembered those riding lessons from so long ago), and I kept my ass in the saddle, and all was well. My friend said a number of times, Wow, Stewart’s being really good, and when we got back, we agreed to do it again. The sunset was gorgeous, the river was peaceful, the air was sweet, the horses were willing… and so was I.